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Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Tragic Death of Brad Halsey: The Baseball Historian's Notes for the Week of November 9

The days of baseball players spending their entire careers,
or at least healthy chunks of it with the same team, are over. While free
agency is certainly a good thing for the business of the game and the bank accounts
of players and agents, it’s a stark difference from the way things used to be.
Now that the 2014 season has concluded, the bidding frenzy will commence, as
teams position themselves to restock their rosters for next year. At least the
theatre that’s the offseason is highly entertaining, as many uniforms will be
swapped and long-term contracts will be inked. While that starts to rev up,
let’s get to the notes for the week.

*The Baseball History Daily has found
another great lost figure from early days of the game. Pitcher Charles
Barngrover was a forgettable 2-9 in his lone minor league season in 1910.
However, as TBHD found out, he was involved in memorable and odd incidents
during his career as a semi-pro player and even after he had left the game-
including a bizarre after-game fight due to a crossed up bet; being erroneously
reported as being lynched following attacking an umpire with a baseball bat in
a game in Texas; and being indicted by a grand jury for “theft of interstate
shipments” in 1921. Sadly, the following year, as he was about to testify
against co-defendants, he was shot and killed in a likely attempt to silence
him.

*It used to be that pitchers applied a variety of substances
to baseballs in an effort to get them to do things that seemingly defied the
laws of physics. Grease, pine pitch, mud, powders and sweat were among the most
commonly used but none approached the level of popularity of good old fashioned
saliva. At one time, the spitball was as common in the game as a slider is
today. The pitch was phased out of the game nearly a century ago as a way to provide
more safety (Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray
Chapman was killed in
1920 when he was hit in the head by an errant spitter) and greater offensive
production. Grantland’s Jonah Keri takes an
intriguing look at the demise of the squishy pitch and its place in baseball
history.

*Endorsement deals are a common sideline for today’s
players. Hawking products on the side is a lucrative way to make money off the
field and expand one’s ability to make a “brand” off their name. This is
something that has happened for years. Check out this mid-1950s commercial for Gillette
razors starring former Brooklyn Dodgers great Pee Wee
Reese. The black and white film and the $1.29 price tag on the chin scraper
are essentially the only things that stand apart from anything that is seen
today.

*Another great Dodger who knows a thing or two about working
on camera and with a microphone is announcing legend Vin Scully. Check out his induction speech for the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. It’s hard to believe that he is so great that despite
more than 30 years passing since his inclusion in baseball’s greatest shrine, he
is still plugging away at his craft!

Some people are put on this earth to do very specific
things, and Scully was most certainly sent to Planet Earth to describe a
baseball game. I don’t know about you, but he is so good at what he does that I
would pay to listen to the man read an Arby’s menu…

*Most fans of baseball history associate Hall of Famer Casey
Stengel with the New York Yankees and New York Mets, as those are the two
teams which he had the most success and notoriety with respectively as a
manager. However, the “Old Perfessor” also had a 14-year career as an
outfielder, spending much of it with the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants.
Here is an excellent picture of young
Casey mugging for the camera in his checkered Dodgers uniform, which looks
similar to the material my kitchen towels are made of…

*Sad news to pass along in the recent
death of former pitcher Brad Halsey.
The 33-year-old died from an apparent climbing accident on a cliff in Texas but
authorities are still investigating.

Drafted in 2002 by the Yankees, the left-hander quickly
moved through the minors, debuting with the Bombers in 2004. He was
subsequently traded
that offseason to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a deal involving pitcher Randy
Johnson. On the move once more, he was dealt to the Oakland Athletics in
2006, which proved to be his final major league season.

Halsey was a combined 14-19 with a 4.84 ERA in 88 career
games (40 starts). His best season was with Arizona in 2005, as he went 8-12
with a 4.61 ERA.

*Philly.com’s Ryan Whirty has done a fantastic job
writing about the tragic death of former Negro League player Alex
Albritton at Byberry mental hospital in 1940. A right-handed pitcher,
“Brit” had a relatively obscure playing career in the 1920s before moving on to
work odd jobs. He later had what was described as a nervous breakdown and was
institutionalized.

Not surprisingly, the hospital, which closed in 1990, had a history
of deplorable
conditions, and those responsible for Albritton’s death were never found.
It’s important to remember this old ballplayer even though so many years have
passed, especially since the circumstances of his final days slipped through
the cracks already.

*Hall-of-Fame pitcher Dennis
Eckersley had a turbulent career, going from top prospect, to ace, losing
his way because of personal problems, and finally ending by being one of the
greatest closers in the history of the game. This 2004 article from the Hartford Courant’s Paul Doyle details
the extreme ups and downs of the right-handers more than 20 years as a player,
including his battles with alcoholism, and failed relationships.